10 (1), 2009

TOJDE is appeared on your screen now as Volume 10, Number: 1. This is the first issue of the year 2009 and 10th anniversary of TOJDE. In this issue it is published four article are in “Notes for Editor Sectio”, 13 articles, 2 reviews. And this time, 26 authors from twelwe different countries are placed. These published articles are from Australia, Botswana, Canada, Italy India, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Srilanka, USA and Turkey.

In general education, in particular foreign language education, can be acknowledged as a lifelong learning process which can be transformed beyond the borders in global sense. Learning a foreign language requires proficiency in four basic skills which are reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Of these skills, speaking and listening are the most daunting tasks for learners and create obstacles when learners of target language do not get the chance of meeting native speakers. Such obstacles can be overwhelmed by integrating certain applications into education process. Service-learning through the internet as a teaching method can be considered one of the most striking one of those applications for foreign language learners. In this paper, the benefits of service-learning are discussed and some suggestions are offered for introducing this method in foreign language settings. By implementing service-learning, it is concluded that learners of any foreign language may get the chance of communicating with native speakers during the course time in foreign language without going abroad. Such an application may also enhance learners to get information about foreign culture by raising awareness of “otherness” and comparing other culture and their own culture. In addition, service-learning as a method of teaching, learning and reflecting combines academic classroom curriculum with meaningful service from the members of learning community and may generate conditions in which lifelong learning will continue.

WebCT is one of the widely used web-based learning tools. For enriching teaching and learning courses at tertiary level, WebCT emerges as an important tool. This paper describes attitudes of students at Anadolu University towards WebCT applications in selected courses. Furthermore, the study describes the attitudes of a sample of students towards WebCT and analyzes data to determine the effect of WebCT dimensions on satisfaction, course advising, and course preference on their overall perception and referral of a course. The findings indicate the emergence of four WebCT dimensions. These factors are access and interaction, learning experience, time and compensation, and exam and exercise. The dimensions are positively associated with satisfaction, course advising, and course preference. The results of this research have significant implications for both the web-based learning as a whole, and it would be a contribution to relatively limited literature on the attitudes towards WebCT enhanced courses in Turkey.

The research article deals with the evaluation of course tutor's performance appointed by the Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad at Master of Education level. The study was delimited to the students enrolled during semesters, spring 2006 to spring 2007 in Rawalpindi region.
The sample of the study consisted of 63 students of Rawalpindi district. A five-point Likert rating scale was administered to collect the views about the selected parameters of course tutor's performance. The 30 items 0f the instrument focused on the selected parameters of tutor's performance. The data were analyzed on applying simple percentage formula along with the calculation of mean score and the recommendations were made from the findings of the study. The study showed their performance was dissatisfactory regarding beforehand written instructions about the methods, ways and styles of writing assignments.
Results showed that tutors’ performed better regarding students’ guidance and providing instructions in first tutorial meeting. The performance of tutors regarding the evaluation of assignments and written feedback of right and wrong was below average. Remedial efforts and correction based reinforcement was lacking in prevailing practices performed by the tutors of ODL system.

E-learning was acknowledged by most educators and researchers as a savior, even an only alternative in education field, especially in the following years of its emergence. However, with the rise of its limitations, the idea of bringing face-to-face learning and e-learning together to complete each other has occured. Blended learning is a method emerged as a result of this sentiment. The new education alternatives which have been discovered as a consequence of the researches and the studies may seem so engrossing but the crucial points are the consequences derived by implementations and the opinions of the students about them.
For this purpose, a survey was carried out at Hacettepe University, Education Faculty, and Biology Education Section. For the research, blended learning was implemented within the frame of Special Teaching Methods course. 20 students who attended to the course constituted the working group. A multiple-choice test of 54 questions was prepared to get students’ opinions and applied to them at the end of the semester. Thus, students’ opinions about the blended learning application were acquired; besides, the opinions in accordance with achievement level and forum page’s frequency of participation in the internet site which is prepared for blended learning application were analyzed. According to the mean () and the standard deviation (ss) that was obtained from the analysis of students’ responses given to the questions, it was determined that the students’ views about the application of blended learning are quite favorable. While analyzing the responses of students who had high success level was more favorable, it was observed that the frequency of participation to the forum pages did not affect the students’ answers.

This paper begins with a brief overview of the current teaching and learning aims and assessment in the Human Rights Law course offered at RMIT University. Although this course has been taught on a face to face basis, in future, it will also be offered to on line students. This calls for new teaching and learning and assessment practices which promote deep learning for those enrolled in distance education. After a brief discussion of the theoretical literature relating to assessment, the paper discusses the perceived benefits of introducing an online learning activity relevant to the aims of the course. The paper then outlines the proposed on line activities and the relevant online tools. How the student will engage with the activity is addressed as is student demonstration of discipline based learning. It will be demonstrated that the overhauling of the existing format of the teaching and learning component relating to the memorandum of advice with online tools and exercises will strengthen and enrich the learning process for students enrolled in distance education and will lead to higher order thinking and deep learning.

Blended/hybrid learning is dominating news in higher education as a training and educational delivery method of choice. It is seen as a link between instructors, learners and classrooms located in different places to enhance learning. Based on the interviews with 15 faculty members and one administrator that had direct experience with this form of delivery at the University of Botswana (UB) the findings suggested two major themes that dominated faculty members ’accounts: potential benefits and challenges of blended learning. The study was guided by the Diffusion of Innovation theory.
The potential benefits of blended learning included improved pedagogy; engagement in learning; and added flexibility in the teaching and learning to mention a few. Faculty members perceived complexities such as lack of students’ readiness to use the course management system, slow network and breakdowns; lack of computers for students and lack of time. The article concludes by suggesting future directions for blended learning (BL) at the UB.

Special education is a mode of education in which specially designed instruction material and environment is required to meet the diverse requirements of children with special needs. In Pakistan, Open University (AIOU) exclusively initiated a program for teacher preparation for Special Children through distance learning. This was a unique program of its kind with no precedence of defined services for Special Teachers’ Preparation. Dept of Special Education AIOU - through Distance learning system, offers study/training at graduate, masters and Ph. D. levels. Teachers are prepared in 6 specialized areas of Visual Impairment, Physical Disabilities, Hearing Impairment, Intellectual Disability, Learning Disability and Inclusive Education. The Open University has a well established regional network, outreach system providing educational counseling and guiding services to its students. University has 32 regional campuses with 86 part-time regional coordinating officers throughout the country for providing assistance to the Regional campuses. Over 900 study centers are established during the semester and are managed through the university’s regional campuses. Each student is assigned to a tutor who is a subject specialist. To maintain consistency of on and off campus observations, University faculty conducts reliability observations with adjunct Supervisors. Their professional growth impacts the quality of the teaching cadre. It was for the first time in the history of teacher training institutes of Pakistan that a teacher training program at Masters Level in the area of Special Education was offered through distance education. This paper gives the experiences, methodology and successes as outcome of the Distance- learning Special-Educator Program in Pakistan. Also highlighted is the Special Teacher Preparation Model through Distance Education System. Increased program completion rates support the fact that Open University faculty have become better distance educators, that more effective student support systems have been constructed, that distance education delivery methods and technologies have improved and the remote areas in Pakistan have become stronger partners in producing quality teachers.

In this paper the authors illuminate the distance education field of endeavor to point out that online education can now be found at most educational levels (elementary, secondary, post-secondary) globally.
This enterprise requires a multitude of traits which are detailed herein in order to alert the new online educator and remind the veteran educator of the essential elements required to achieve desired outcomes. To instruct online clearly requires informed goal setting, clear processes, and predictable outcomes, from the onset. As well designers need to examine current research, conduct online research, and listen to feedback from online students to maintain and nurture both the program and the students. Some key factors of online education are laid out which include strategic intent (planning), content (curriculum), and pedagogy (incorporating current learning theories into delivery models).
As well several underpinning qualities are described that must be present such as the teacher’s quality of online instruction, and level of expertise in distance learning. All online educators need to be aware of the student (profile of successful online learners, interaction), assessment/evaluation (rigorous, comparable and authentic), support (student support and training on using the technology), technical infrastructure, and the need to review program frequently which is key to the development and maintenance of successful online education efforts

Countries’ success in the knowledge economy increasingly rely on highly-skilled and qualified people, which in turn, requires rapid, effective, and less expensive education and training. In this context, e-Learning has emerged; e-Learning is scalable, less expensive than traditional learning, and clearly advantageous for learners to access educational information and content anywhere and anytime. However, for evaluating the effectiveness of e-learning programs, a definition of ‘effectiveness’ should to be established. In addition, understanding the factors influencing the effectiveness of e-Learning programs will help learning institutions to channel resources to significant factors rather than unimportant ones. Accordingly, this study intends to develop measures for the effectiveness of e-Learning and define the factors influencing them, and how both –the effectiveness measures and influencing factors- are perceived by different e-Learning practitioners, in particular, business and academic ones. More importantly, a comparison of both groups’ perceptions is examined.

The aim of this study is to research the effect of the preferences of the students concerning PowerPoint presentations in financial accounting courses on their final scores. The data was collected from questionnaires that were applied to 77 students taking Financial Accounting I course in Anadolu University. According to the results of the study; The preference of the students about PowerPoint presentations have no significant effect on their final scores. However when the preferences about PowerPoint presentations are combined with an appropriate study environment, this effect positively increases the final score.

A recent study investigated the degree of involvement in new teaching and learning methods by the academic staff of a large privileged Turkish state university, and revealed that faculties of education and open education were better in terms of change readiness than other faculties.
The current study builds on that study, and investigates the involvement of the institution and teaching staff in technology integration from observers’ perspectives through administering a personal information form and a 31-item Likert questionnaire to 475 senior students of the Faculty of Education.
Findings revealed that what were reported by instructors in the previous study seem somewhat different from what is being reported by their students in the current study.
More specifically, students found their instructors and the infrastructure of the faculty quite inadequate in terms of the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) within classroom settings. Implications and suggestions regarding the integration process are provided.

This paper addresses human resources utilization at the university environment. We address the design issues of e-learning courses that can capture the teacher knowledge. The underlying objective is that e-learning is a key knowledge and major resources for many universities. Therefore, the design of e-learning should be an important part of the university knowledge management process. Teachers' knowledge in any important topic or field should be managed in a way that the university can benefit from it in case of teacher leaving or retired. Hence, intellectual personal knowledge management will be explored through the development of e-learning systems. Some concepts from the Artificial Intelligence field can be used in developing such systems. The potential for utilizing human knowledge in the university environment will optimize the resources and can be of cost effective and quality assurance factors and provide the university with a sustainable competitive advantage. Assuring the proper knowledge management within the university environment is a more complex issue. This is due to the diverse of topics in one hand and the behavior of the student and the lecturers on the other hand. Effective implementation and success requires a lot of efforts that will guarantee the utilization of the intellectual capital within the university environment.

Faculty of Engineering Technology of the Open University of Sri Lanka has been offering engineering programmes at a distance for the last two decades or so. However, completion rates in Faculty of Engineering Technology are lower compared to the other faculties of the University. This paper investigates the reasons for low completion rates in the faculty and suggests ways and means to overcome this problem.
The study concludes that increasing student numbers will not necessarily increase percentage of students completing the programme though the number of students completing is increased. It is found that students offering courses for the first time in the system of distance education in their academic career perform poorer because they are not conversant with distance education techniques.
It is recommended that the Faculty must offer an orientation programme on distance education to all the students enrolling for the first time, before they commence their regular programmes. Further, it has been found that considerable percentage of students who obtain eligibility to sit the final examination by completing the continuous assessments do not sit the final examination.
This has been found to contribute towards non-completion of programmes as students sitting the final examination in the subsequent years perform poorly in their exams. To overcome this problem, it is recommended that current practise of allowing the student to carry forward their eligibility to unlimited period of time must be disbanded.

In the world of “borderless education”, off-shore outsourcing of learning resources becomes the norm practised by universities worldwide, especially for a newly start-up institution such as the Wawasan Open University (WOU). For the past 3 years of experience in learning resources development, the WOU has encountered various issues such as managing of writers in distant locations, meeting deadlines, training of writers in distant locations, keeping the cost down, copyright issues, quality control, and cultural differences/localisation of context. In overcoming some of these issues, the WOU has adopted an effective monitoring mechanism to enable the success of this key activity in the university. Since its inception in year 2006 until early 2008, the institution has successfully outsourced about fifty course materials off-shore and locally. This paper first introduces the outsourcing process in WOU followed by some of the issues faced by the university while working with the offshore writers and the adaptation of course materials. Subsequently, details of the monitoring mechanism used in the outsourcing process will be explained. Lastly, this paper also presents WOU’s future direction in this perspective.

Keywords: Program and Material Development in DE, Learning Resources in DE, DE and Industry Partnerships.

Simulation enables learning by doing and provides opportunity to explore the modeled domain. Interactive simulation allows to present information in more dynamic, compelling and interactive way with engaging environment. This paper discusses the application of interactive simulation supporting the actual laboratory session of basic Electronics lab activities. For this, interactive simulation for one of the basic electronics lab activity was designed, developed with state of art technology ‘Flash MX 2004’ and evaluated for its effectiveness. A particular focus of this investigation is on how the use of interactive simulation influences learners’ approach to learning. Pre test and post test were administrated on the target group, using quasi-experimental research methodology.
‘Total quality’ of developed package was evaluated by administrating a separate questionnaire. The comments and ratings obtained in the learners’ insights provided the basis for the learning impact study. This investigation indicated that the ‘self paced interactive simulation’ provides added value to the learners for the study of fundamental concepts of both theory and lab, able to perform lab experiment prior to an actual laboratory session and reach to the level of proficiency.

E-learning as a form of distance education has become one of the essential movements in all levels of education. Almost all of the higher education institutions in Turkey as well as the rest of the world have been trying to offer e-learning opportunities for their students and the staff.
Anadolu University in Turkey has a web portal, which is called Anadolu University Internet Supported Education System, which serves to support academicians’ classes via the online system. The academicians generally give their courses in traditional way but they have begun to use this online system to support their courses. Computer and computer-supported technologies are new issues in the instructional communication field. When we look at the course list for the 2008 spring semester on the portal, we see 8 (eight) communication courses, which are given by Communication Sciences Faculty teachers. If we want to develop and deliver successful e-learning programs we should need to know teachers’ behaviours and attitudes before developing an e-learning system. The aim of this research is to find out the academicians’ teaching method when they use the online support system.

From beginning 1982 to December 2007, many studies have been conducted dealing with Anadolu’s Open Education Faculty and its application as being thesis, article, book, or report, publishing media and the papers presented in some seminars, nationally and international for discussing on some aspects of OEF’s. As being a problem statement of this study it can be said that studies have done during 25 years dealing with the application of Open Education Faculty in Turkey and abroad since its beginning. What were their titles?, What were their topics?, Where and How can they be obtained?, What was their bibliographic information and Where have they been published? And what was the importance of the study for the other educationists, researchers who conducted a study on
OEF? Etc.

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